Know about the first tribal school in Maharashtra that got ISO certification

The Tribal Residential Schools have never been in the news for a good reason and this is the very reason that keeps the Tribal Department of Maharashtra under scan all the time. But this time, it has got something that it can be proud about. 530 schools have gotten the ISO 9001 : 2015 certification recently. This is a proud moment for the tribal department as well as these schools. This year, in the month of April, it was revealed in a survey that around 882 tribal children die in five years in residential schools across the country. Now, that the certification has been given, things will surely change for the better.

The Government Girls Secondary and Higher Secondary Ashramshala in Kothali village, Nandurbar teaches 630 children from various tribal villages across the district. According to a top official, “While several private schools across the state have bagged the ISO for academic excellence, this is the first tribal school in the state which has got the honor.”

Soon, more number of schools will be soon a part of this list as they are also on the verge of getting this certificate.
According to sources, “Nandurbar has 33 state-run tribal schools which cater to nearly 16,000 kids. Over 10 schools in Nagpur and Nashik district have also started working on the certification. It may take a few months when they will actually get it.”

The principal of Kothali school Jagdish Patil, said, “The Delhi-based company had held an internal audit of the school to check our academic excellence, infrastructure, methods of learning, digital classrooms, and hostels. There were some deficiencies which we addressed in a month’s time. The second audit was conducted and after finding all 46 parameters in place, the document was handed over to us.”

The school was established in the year 1979 and it has always been in the news for wrong reasons. But, everything started getting back on track just two years back. This happened when the district collector decided to adopt the school and work towards the development of the school. Special focus was then given to the methods of teaching. These schools are run by the government and lakhs of tribal kids study here. Also, some of the corporate firms are also ready to adopt these schools now.

Including the corporate sector was started by the government last year. The government aimed to rope in the corporate sector so that they could help in running the 529 tribal residential schools. The government realized that even after spending huge amounts of money, they were not able to run the schools properly and hence this step was taken.